


i would give you the stars (if i could)

by whal



Series: your lips, my lips [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, fluff if you squint enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21889267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whal/pseuds/whal
Summary: "What were we before we were we?"Probably somewhere, standing by the shoulder of a dirt road, by a road made of stones, perhaps, and the sparkles of a new high school student looking for a place to fit in.Maybe while the city is burning.And her and Weiss were disappearing, probably like how they are now, too.“We …”Weiss realizes how silly it all sounds.“We were still we even before all of this.”--OrThe one where Ruby only has a couple of hundred words left to her name.
Relationships: Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Series: your lips, my lips [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1440727
Comments: 17
Kudos: 128





	i would give you the stars (if i could)

**Author's Note:**

> tried something new :)

Ruby returns home and her entire mind is storming. 

Such an extreme of profound sadness, disturbance and uneasiness, and disruptions of sudden bursts of joy that lasts only a few seconds in between. 

She feels like running till she is breathless on the plains,

or just some place. 

_“You got one thousand words.”_

_Ruby didn’t want to believe what she was hearing._

_“What?”_

What rages against her used to keep her alive. 

_“Use it wisely.”_

Now she is just walking aimlessly across the halls of Atlas Academy, living in the center of a wound still fresh.

* * *

Kisses with Weiss feel more intimate now. 

At least in the wee hours of the morning, right before dawn breaks, 

when the world is blue and nothing feels like the throbbing of her throat when she cracks her eyes open, curling herself into Weiss’ chest and inhale her scent, before drifting back off to sleep; to her entwining her fingers into the palm of Weiss’ hand and feel the texture of her skin and the way it’s 

alive. 

It’s not as romantic as before. 

Unlike how she first confesses her love, stuttering and stumbling over her words, more afraid of what the outcome is. That that in the understanding that the reasons she thought to have fallen in love with Weiss the most might just be the same reasons she may fell out of love from. 

She understands. That the snobbish side to this silly rich girl throwing a tantrum because of her background, distancing from everyone to protect herself from the strange world that she was then put into. It’s the cowering of a child around the first time she angered her parents. So much like Ruby, but it is different from whence she got protective arms around her, and soft, blonde hair engulfing her presence to distract her from the group of Beowolves readying themselves to swallow them up and whole. 

That Weiss’ once endearing stubbornness to strive for perfection would one day become a refusal for compromising for the better of her own good. 

And her one track mind on the set of goals she thought of to be her lifeline now is just meaningless scribbles of writings on ancient papers that matters no more, 

that her little goals now only seem to be mistaken as immaturity,

and her bad habits of the subtler times of self-destruction now is just

money down the drain and 

countless of arguments that she can get better. That she can do better. 

And Weiss’ face as the first thing she wakes up to may just be another distraction in her busy life. 

Nothing saddens and scares her more than the thought that Weiss--and her in Weiss’ life--can become ugly to her,

One whom she thought of to be containing all the constellations that are just so bright; as her world. 

Her universe. 

Though it is within the dedication into finding something beautiful even if the world seems to be 

tearing them apart. 

Even on the days where it feels like nothing she does will matter. 

_We only have each other now._

She remembers. 

Even when it feels like it should be less romantic, less of the butterflies and the heart speeding up every time she sees Weiss, 

Not anymore of the kissing part where everything feels so romantic and firey and the shy glances and whispering of unspoken promises underneath bed sheets and 

the secret hand holding, of the sneaking up to Weiss for only fleeting moments of alone time that feels like it could last centuries. 

There’s more of it now. Sometimes still in secret, sometimes through a fitful of angry comments and shouting and dragging,

and _grieving_. To the things that strayed too far to be taken back. 

To Pyrrha. To the fall of Beacon. Sometimes, other times, Summer.

Sometimes through the little moments they have alone, amidst the battlefield thinking that they would never possibly make it out alive. There’s the “I missed you so much”, there’s the “Welcome back”, the “One more kiss before I have to go”, and the sleepy morning kisses before having to get out of bed, where she doesn’t remember the alarm going off, but she presses her lips to Weiss’ anyway. 

Some nights she often dreams of the unspoken fears that she has, of her answering, whispering, hearing static from Weiss end. 

That she is in the clocking of a lighthouse, or at least beneath it, and with the wind and salt that satiates into the wires that feels like it’s gonna get cut off anytime soon, 

she speaks to Weiss. 

And conversations in those dreams feel like amounted times of a little more than just reading lips over 

the crystals of radios. So much static and so much is missed. Yet why does it feel like her and Weiss never speak the way they wanted to sound like. 

She’s always stopping herself in the middle of sentences, so terrified that she’s going to say something wrong. 

Such a heartbreak that she can never find herself to say the things she wanted to tell Weiss.

Though sometimes the few hundred words she got left articulate into

her finding the rhythms and accidental poetry in everyone’s attempts to speak their mind. 

But Weiss’ words, there is no such rhythm to it. There is just 

so much hunger, 

for the greediness that Weiss tries to keep away, at bay, for a touch at her soul to her is as sacred as her mother’s words, sincerely, to her, but she knows that it would never make her heart soft. 

For her love is no thought all want and there is no such logic to it, 

and Ruby can say she is the same. 

But Ruby speaks with rhythm. With the little of chimes of a person so broken--

Even Yang thinks she is mad then. 

She has this idea because she thinks too much. 

Ruby used to think just as much as Yang does, too. 

But now she thinks very little and she understands everything she feels. 

That she is feeling through the flesh, through her blood and bones and the touching of her hand against Weiss. And the little hums of the dangers ahead, yet the obliviousness to it keeps both of them at bay. Like a gunshot in the dark, a single string of the instrument in the night, broken into tiny little pieces, and then snapping off. 

Not thinking of the intellect, and she is the flesh she is the blood she is the need the want the seeking the yearning the _feeling_ of safety somewhere. That like saying Weiss is her home and when she uses off the last words she wants it to be for Weiss. For Yang too, but Weiss is her home. 

And home is where her heart is at. 

* * *

“What were we, before we were we?” 

93.

Probably somewhere, standing by the shoulder of a dirt road, by a road made of stones, perhaps, and the sparkles of a new highschool student looking for a place to fit in. 

Maybe while the city is burning. 

And her and Weiss were disappearing, probably like how they are now, too. 

“We …” 

Weiss realizes how silly it all sounds. 

“We were still we even before all of this.” 

That perhaps it is destiny that binds them together. Though Weiss refuses to think so. 

If destiny is real in the slightest then tell her why god why when she prayed to god for her to replace Ruby from her seat, no one answered. 

If destiny is real, if so, then why did Pyrrha have to go?

Maybe perhaps in the next life, her and Ruby will meet each other again for the first time. 

And they would believe in everything except the harm that they’re capable of. 

No, Weiss doesn’t believe in destiny. But maybe when circumstances differ and she gets to see Ruby for years and years after, Destiny will make 

its leap and she may be whole and full again. 

* * *

Sometimes both of them love badly. 

Her and Weiss. 

Sometimes the love is the type of love that implodes. Folds in on itself and eats its insides. 

Turns wine into poison. 

Behaves poorly in front of people. Harm themselves and think too much about the past. 

Sometimes when they love each other badly, they love themselves worse. They love badly, love beastly, love sick. 

Sometimes the love can’t get back home on time. Sometimes the love can’t sleep with itself and cannot contain itself. 

The love catches fire. 

Destroys the belly, strips buildings, and then goes missing. 

Punches. Destroys artifacts and smashes ancient heirlooms. 

Sometimes Ruby loves Weiss to the point of it turning into hatred. 

Love her so much that she is willing to carry all the years she’s had with her pain.

Though she tells herself she can’t ever bring it to that point. That love is senseless. 

And she imagines herself, sometimes, to be invisible. To stay hidden, disappear into the dusk, and just stay there, 

still. 

It’s not that she’s sad and bitter at the world for giving her such a sudden farewell, though it may sound like it. 

She’s thinking about the 

trees and people and how she’s wished to be silent more. To be more of them. To be more like them. 

Less of the talking. Less clumsy, loud. 

And how it’s hard to always want something else, like the feeling of Weiss’ hand against her and Weiss’ kiss to her is now just a silent begging for her to stop talking. 

To not leave. 

* * *

“How will you remember?” She whispers, low and quiet and it kills her inside. 

She strokes at Ruby’s cheek, her hands shake, slightly,

And she presses at her lips instead. 

“That I love you?”

45.

The question is so honest that the cut goes deeper, 

like she’s about to cry. 

“Yes.” 

She wants to know the answer. 

She wants to know--she needs to know--she wants to hug Ruby tightly and feels her exhale against her shoulder, lips to her neck and the feeling of her relaxing herself entirely against her--

She wants her. 

She wants Ruby. 

She wants so much of everything. 

Yet it kills her to understand and to expect that Ruby could never possibly love her entirely and wholly.

There is no more to the forever, to the till death do us apart.

Now it is only words as a time measurement. 

Ruby could have chosen to not love her instead. 

“That’s easy.” 

43.

And Weiss holds at her breath when she hears that. 

_I will love you if I never see you again._

Ruby stares at her, honesty written all over her eyes.

_And I will love you if I never see you again._

“I can’t help it.” 

39.

_And I will love you if I see you every Tuesday._

_I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them._

They don’t speak anymore. Or at least after that. 

Not when the few dozens of words left could mean a little more than just a confession of Ruby telling Weiss that she’s scared. That she doesn’t want to leave and it just feels like yesterday when she sees the sun again. Sees at the moon and the stars, at the trees that rustles silver in the wind, at the purple, metallic sheen of the sunset, and she feels at how soft the air is.

Oh, 

Oh how did her and Weiss ended up like this? 

“How did we …”

36.

_I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer._

“How did we touch each other … with these hands?” 

27.

_I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness of the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eyes as it misreads what is written._

The words turn blue waiting in Weiss’ mouth. 

_I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms._

(if love is what it is then both of them must be insane)

“I ...” 

_I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp..._

“I don’t know.” 

_I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and all the secrets have gone gasping into the world._

But she reaches out for Ruby’s hand and clasps it tightly with her fingers. 

_I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled._

They stare at each other; not speaking a word. 

Though for a second Ruby imagines for it to be snowing, Weiss boots on brown leaves, and snow in her hair. And she’s

smiling. Their breaths come out as white clouds and she swears her life flashes before her eyes. Grimm above their head and the distant shouting of both Yang and Blake jolted them both up, because they swear they could’ve died right then and there. 

_I will love you until every fire is extinguished and rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods._

And Weiss speaks. 

“Sometimes I wonder what it would have felt like if there’s enough time left.”

_I will love you until the birds hates a nest and the worm hates an apple._

And Ruby nods. 

And she says, “Yeah.”

And she nods.

_I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close..._

And she starts to sob. 

* * *

Maybe once they’re done with all of this there might be a way out of it. 

But who is she kidding, when all of the words are stuck in her throat and Ruby’s every touch is an engraving to her skin that she tries so hard to not memorize. 

That, she says in her head. But she knows she will remember the kisses, with her lips to Ruby’s and how she gave her

everything she had. 

_I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory._

And Weiss will remember the room they used to occupy in. The feel of Ruby, the light in the window and the blueprints and the little comic books Ruby used to carry around. 

And the morning coffee and the little noons and long nights. 

_I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don’t marry me._

And their bodies, spilled together, 

sleeping. And the tiny flowing currents around the folding of sheets and the tumbling of 

Her arm and Weiss’ arm, her leg with Weiss’ and she remembers 

back to when Ruby was the first person to make her laugh again. 

What is it that she says, 

That when she thinks about all the things she’s wanted to apologize to Ruby for, 

and all the pain they caused each other. 

_I will love you if you marry someone else--_

And everything that she’s put on Ruby, 

And everything she’s needed Ruby to say, or needed her 

to be. 

Maybe some other time they would get to sit down, quietly, peacefully, and have a talk. 

_\--and I will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all._

Over the array of mountain tops and the quiet singing of the snow and wind. 

Maybe Yang will come to understand, one day. 

But Weiss can’t possibly take her place. 

That when Yang tells her being beside Ruby sometimes is a must, that just,

sometimes, 

it’s unbearable and a little too much. 

That it is sometimes insufficient and the heart isn’t beating how it’s supposed to be. 

But when tied down by blood Yang has never questioned, not even once, when she bleeds for Ruby. 

That it is because Yang is feeling so much of it in the flesh and in the blood that when even after a horrible, horrible day of nothing but her and Ruby arguing over their last words, their last conversation together amidst everything, that when Ruby breaks down and yells and shouts and screams at Yang that she doesn’t want to leave, that she still wants to be here, that Yang has to help her somehow,

Ruby can do so without that feeling of her heart breaking into tiny little pieces. 

But she can’t do that to Weiss. 

It 

makes the parting harder. 

Makes the disappearance of someone once so dear to her--makes the confrontation--

What is the point to it even?

That even, perhaps, sometimes, when the sunlight disappears even as it swells. 

_That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way._

* * *

But when she is drowning in dirt and ash and nothing, 

_nothing,_

could have made it went away.

All that was left to it was her clenching on something that just wasn’t there anymore. 

“Can I kiss you?” Ruby asks.

6.

And Weiss says, agreeing, nodding, and quiet, quiet and leans in slowly, thumb so tender at Ruby’s cheek and her other hand clutching at Ruby’s shoulder,

and she leans in, so shy, licks at her lips and she

_kisses._

She can taste at the blood and the iron of the gunpowder of Ruby holding the bullet to her lips, or how chapped and dry they are,

and she continues. 

And she kisses Ruby. 

And she kisses Ruby. And kisses her and kisses her and kisses her. 

And Ruby strokes at her cheek. 

_“Are you happy?”_

3.

For a second Weiss doesn’t answer. 

But they’re atop the mountains now, just like how she’s wished for it. 

With snow underneath their boots and Grimm roaming below them, 

and the quiet singing of the snow and wind. 

Ruby stands there, pulling her mother’s cloak down just a tad bit, and she turns to Weiss. 

_I’m happy._

1.

**Author's Note:**

> You say the same words that I've said to you:  
> "It's the best for us, maybe in the future."  
> But I lose my mind when it comes to you,  
> I would give you the stars if I could.  
> \- bee - heartbreak
> 
> the love letter in the piece is by Lemony Snicket, quoted from The Beatrice Letters. work inspired by Charles Bukowski.
> 
> beta reader: Heulo


End file.
